There may not be a topic more talked about and less practiced among followers of Jesus than prayer, which is why so many of us feel discouraged or guilty about the consistency of our prayer lives.
In our busyness, we exchange closet prayer and intercession for “praying without ceasing” on-the-go (or praying that does cease, most days). Our prayerless rhythms are so engrained that we’ll even keep ourselves from telling people we’ll pray for them, because we’re tired of lying to people while offering them our best intentions.
On top of our busyness, many Christians are confused on why we pray at all. We know we should because the Word of God commands it, and for most that’s enough to make the effort. But at the bottom of our minds, we’re confused about why God would want us to pray for things that we believe will happen according to His sovereign plan irrespective of our praying.
Why We Pray
The first reason we pray is not to see God do things, but to be with God. And if that’s all prayer was, it would be worth every second we sacrifice to enjoy Him and His presence.
But God also invites us to pray so that we can be a part of seeing His will accomplished on the earth. Every follower of Jesus has a role to play in seeing God’s kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and God has ordained that we pray for Him to make it happen while we labor for it by His strength (Matt. 6:10).
We shouldn’t view prayer as one more thing we have to do, or begrudge it as one more spiritual discipline to feel bad about because of our poor performance. Prayer is a privilege that God invites us into, not because He needs our prayers, but because He loves us and wants us to be a part of what He’s doing.
This is the heart behind what God tells Ezekiel in Ezekiel 36:
37 “Thus says the Lord GOD: This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them: to increase their people like a flock.
He didn’t have to let them ask Him. And He could have increased their people like a flock without their prayers. But He let them enter into the joy of being a part of what He wanted to do for them.
This is grace upon grace. God lets us pray.
Jesus gave us the privilege of approaching God as Father on His merits, by His blood. Because of who He is and what He’s done for us in the gospel, He says that we can approach His Father as “our Father” (Matt. 6:9). Jesus told us He doesn’t have to ask for us, because the Father Himself loves us and wants to hear from us and spend time with us (John 16:26–27). The Father wants to give good gifts to His children, and the reason why we don’t see His will more in our lives is because of our prayerlessness or because we pray for our wills, and not His (Matt. 7:11; James 4:2–3).
It’s hard to think of a greater privilege in the universe than God inviting us to be a part of seeing His will done and His kingdom come to earth. We don’t bring the power; we bring the petition. He lets us play the part of asking, and He will often wait to act in power for the believing prayers of His people. As Sam Storm and others have stated, “We must never presume God will grant us apart from prayer what he has ordained to grant us only by means of prayer.”
In prayer, we are God’s children coming to Him to ask Him for His will to be done in our lives. We pray because God has ordained to accomplish His will through the believing prayers of His people. We pray because children love being with their Father and joining Him in what He’s doing.
God’s giving us the privilege of being with Him and being a part of seeing His kingdom come in our world. Let’s pray, because we get to.
